


Through the Octobers

by Hecate



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 16:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: Buffy and Dawn, one Halloween at a time.Note: I screwed around with the timeline of the tv show for a bit.





	Through the Octobers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celaenos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/gifts).

It's Halloween. 

Dawnie is skipping along ahead of her, hair and red cape flying, her best friend trailing after Dawn. 

It's Halloween and Buffy isn't the Slayer yet. 

She is just a teenager with parents that started to argue more and more. She is just a teenager with the most annoying sister in the world.

Life sucks.

~*~

Sunnydale is pretty in a bland way, sunshine and white buildings, family houses with perfect lawns in front of them. One shopping street. One club that is so safe it allows minors. Another for the students. The hint of bigger cities close by. Somewhere an ocean.

A hellhole beneath it all.

Her sister is dressed up as a princess, a cliché in pink and white. Their mother wants Buffy to go trick and treating with her. She wants to make sure that Dawn is safe. Buffy should be on patrol instead.

Still, Buffy follows her sister.

And maybe she leaves her alone for a moment, leaves her alone in the light to dive into a dark alleyway, to tear a vampire away from the boy dressed up as a knight, his wooden sword a weapon in her hand. And maybe she is afraid when she runs back to find her sister. Maybe she doesn't see her right away, and her heart skips a beat, and the world opens up its mouth and smiles with too many teeth.

But maybe, she then sees Dawnie. And she runs towards her, and she says a few words in anger, and her sister sulks for the rest of the evening.

Maybe her little sister knows more than she should about Buffy. And that is not okay, that is not supposed to happen. Dawnie is just a kid, a child. The darkness isn't allowed to touch her.

Maybe this all happens and they don't tell their mother about any of it.

~*~

For one Halloween, Buffy doesn't know what a Slayer is, doesn't know who she is.

She is scared. 

She almost dies. 

But when she comes home, the window at the back of the house is open, the one her mom always closes before going to bed, the one Buffy can climb through even when she is tired or hurt. And her sister waits for her. 

Dawn shows Buffy all the candy she got then, gives her all the stuff she doesn't want to eat herself. 

It's a shitty Halloween.

But at least she still got some candy.

~*~

Faith hits her life like a bomb, and she leaves a hole in it, a festering wound. Buffy sees it sometimes when she looks in the mirror, a loneliness that hasn't been there before. She feels it, too, when she is with Xander and Willow. When the two of them joke and laugh and talk about costumes and it suddenly feels as if there is a wall between them.

Because Buffy is the Slayer.

Kendra is dead.

Faith is kinda evil. And in a coma.

Buffy is on her own.

Faith left her mark on Dawn as well, a hurt that Buffy can't quite understand, a strange and sharp thing. A new kind of anger, too, as unfamiliar as her sadness. Buffy has never seen her sister this angry, this furious.

Maybe one day, Buffy will ask her about it.

~*~

Halloween is over, the demon is dead, and all the people that were lost in the frathouse got out of it. It's been a good night, at least a good night for a Slayer, and Buffy doesn't care about anything else.

It's been the first Halloween without seeing Dawn, her sister already out trick or treating when Buffy had visited her mother. It's funny how Buffy only notices that now. 

It's funny that for a quick moment, it hurts.

~*~

Her sister wears a shirt with keys printed all over them and calls it a day.

Buffy wants to say something, wants to go shopping with her, wants to find a princess dress that fits her, bright and new.

But Tara shakes her head and reaches out for Buffy's hand.

Buffy lets her sister be.

~*~

“I slew him with a pencil!” Dawn tells her for the hundredth time, her voice excited. “With a pencil! Did you ever slay a vampire with a pencil?”

There is triumph in her sister's voice, now that the fear has faded and the adrenaline hits her, a latecomer to the party. It's fierce and it's bold. And for a few seconds, Buffy remembers being young like that, remembers slaying her first vampire, and she feels that moment again. She swallows. Says, "Pretty sure I did," and smiles at Dawn.

"Show off," Dawn says, and then she runs off. Buffy wants to scold her, wants to call her back because she barely just survived her little, stupid Halloween trip. But their house is just a few feet away. She can still see Dawn ahead of her.

So Buffy walks faster, her eyes on the shadows surrounding her home, her eyes on Dawn. She only relaxes when their house embraces them with warmth, Dawn turning on too many lights as she throws her jacket over the couch and goes into her room. She seems okay, Buffy thinks, nothing to worry about. Another bullet dodged.

But later, in the early morning, Buffy finds Dawn in front of the TV, some horror movie playing out, the tears on her face barely visible. She goes to the kitchen then, makes hot chocolate like their mom used to make, and she grabs some of the candy Dawn had ignored before because she is too old for them now.

Dawn says nothing when Buffy sits down next to her, but she drinks the chocolate and she eats the candy. On screen, a lone girl survives, bloodied and bruised.

In their home, it's the two of them.

Alive.

~*~

It's Halloween, could be Halloween, but girls are dropping dead left and right around Buffy. And she can't think about costumes, can't think about anything that doesn't help her protect the young girls in her house, protect her friends. Protect her sister.

So Halloween isn't Halloween and it passes by quickly,

Faith comes back.

Buffy doesn't really know what to do with Faith, can only tell her that she is grateful Faith came. Because Faith is a Slayer, is so much more powerful than the other girls. Because Buffy _is_ grateful. Faith is a weapon, after all, and Buffy needs more of those. 

But Dawn doesn't talk with Faith at the beginning, avoids her at all costs. Buffy remembers her anger then, her fury. Doesn't say anything. 

She doesn't have time for Dawn, not when she loses the battles in parts, and not after Xander loses his eye. Not even when Dawn throws Buffy out of their home, her little sister as angry with her as she has been Faith. Knows, for the first time, that it hadn't been quite just anger back then, that it had been hurt and disappointment. 

And that hurts. 

She's on her own until Spike finds her, and that hurts, too. Because she failed, because she's tired. It hurts because she misses Dawn, and she doesn't know if she can win this thing without her sister trusting in her. 

Buffy dreams of Dawn dying. Wakes up and isn't ready for that, wakes up and sees the First. And then, in the night, with Spike still sleeping and her sister still dying in her mind, she's angry. And things start making sense again.

When she comes back, Faith has been injured and chaos has marched into her home as if it has a mission. But Buffy has a plan now, and she knows that the rest will follow.

But before they go into another final battle, she finds the time to talk to her sister. She makes the time. And they sit outside of their house, the stars bright above them, and it's almost normal. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, not looking at Dawn. 

“Yeah,” Dawn says. “Me, too.” She laughs then, the sound bright in the darkness. A little sad, too. “Mom would have flipped.”

Buffy snorts, imagines her mom with them, imagines her seeing the house filled with all these girls. Knows her mom would have been so very afraid. Tells herself that she isn't. That there will be another night. Another year. There has to be.

“Next year,” Buffy tells Dawn, reaching out to take her hand, “next year, we'll do the whole Halloween thing again.”

“With costumes?” Dawn asks. “Like little kids?”

“Yeah,” Buffy says, “exactly like that."

~*~

Ahead of her, Dawn is walking with a group of younger Slayers, her little sister almost looking grown-up among them. Still, she is twirling across the road, holding one of the girls' hands, the two of them moving in wild circles, Dawn's red cape dancing with them.

Buffy has to laugh at them, has to smile. And she follows when her sister calls out her name, reaches out to join the circle.


End file.
